Last week my local writers’ group reviewed and critiqued a chapter of mine in which my main character, Katie, is nine years old. My writers’ group sympathizes with my little Katie, and they’ve said some harsh things about certain other of my novel’s characters they’ve met, who are not very kind to her. (Which makes me do a secret internal happy dance, even though I know exactly why they are such bitter, mean-spirited characters.)
Katie, in that scene we read, was having one of the toughest days of her young life. I won’t give you a spoiler for my unfinished novel, which is that messy stage of still being written, like when you are organizing your closet but everything is thrown all over the floor, in the meantime.
In the lead-up to the scene we were considering, we saw that little Katie had been reading a book to distract herself from a difficult drama going on around her. I, as the author of this fictional story, had chosen Katie’s book: Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
At the center of that classic book was Anne Shirley, a skinny, red-headed hellion of an orphan girl. I admired her for her vivid imagination and quick wit, and for whacking a boy with her slate when he teased her. Hard enough to break the slate, which warmed my ten-year-old heart. I loved Anne’s story beyond anything else I read in all my elementary school years.
And that is saying quite a lot, seeing as I read so very many books in grade school. The librarians at the public library knew me by name.
I read each book I got my hands on in the same way a desperate survivor of a sinking ship hauls herself, heaving and choking, out of the vast ocean, onto a floating, splintered plank of wood. And hangs on for dear life, as the wild waves toss that plank like a toothpick.
Books were my salvation and my comfort. Anne of Green Gables was the most memorable of them, one of my splintered planks, that floated me when the water was rough. Anne herself was my friend. Anne’s courage and strength inspired me to be brave and strong. The girl had guts.
So, I put my favorite book in my character Katie’s hands, because Katie needed a friend too, for her own survival.
Anne of Green Gables has been on my mind for awhile now. (One reason is that there’s a wonderful new version of the story called Anne with an E, which I saw recently on Netflix. There are other good film versions available, too.) But even before that, I’ve been thinking about Anne’s story as one small textural element embedded in Katie’s character, as I’m working on my novel every day. Katie, like me, loved Anne. And who we love illuminates our own character, I think.
Generations of girls around the world loved Anne. Elisa Gabbert wrote a lovely article in the online journal Literary Hub, about Anne of Green Gables as a childhood cultural reference in her own life. (http://lithub.com/too-smart-or-too-pretty-the-anne-of-green-gables-paradox/) She pondered the conflict for young girls between being beautiful (or at least feeling pressured to be beautiful), and being smart. (Isn’t that one a dilemma!) A paradox illustrated in Anne’s story.
Ms. Gabbert wrote, “Anne, as an orphan, simply wants to have value; she wants the world to want her.”
Ah. Yes! Don’t all of us seek that, in our own way? Whoever we are? And especially if we are not wanted and welcomed, appreciated just as we are, within our own families, or our world?
My survival by reading worked because I saw something in each of the characters in books I read—as being like me in some way. I saw that I was not alone in my struggle to establish that I was worthy of attention. A little less invisible. Maybe if other people believed in me, I might learn to believe in myself as well. Yeah, yeah. Go to therapy, Judy. Well. What you see now is the product of profound (also incomplete) awareness after doing a lot of therapy. Beforehand, I was less–articulate about it.
Anne succeeded in convincing the world that she had value. I knew this because I valued her so highly. She made the world want her, by making me want her. And if I could be convinced of her significance, perhaps I could hope that someone would see me as significant. And they would want me. Is this really tiresome for you to read?
Anne was scrawny, and I was plump (the bane of my existence, then and—well, now I’m working on self-forgiveness.) She lived in Canada, and I lived in the southwest United States. But she was like me. For one thing, we both felt awkward, and had big vocabularies, from reading so much. We both wore second-hand clothes we disliked. (In my vulnerable junior-high years, my mother bought my only winter coat at a thrift store, and it was different from everyone else’s. When I already felt so different. It was of fake-fur, spotted brown and white to give the appearance of a rather garish pseudo-cowhide. Yes. I marvel, looking back, that I was oblivious to what snickers and raised eyebrows may have followed me as I walked to school. Could they have thought it was cool? When I wasn’t? I doubt it. I’m surprised I wasn’t bullied. I chose to see it as distinctive. Was it a certain kind of mixed-message attention? If any of my former classmates remember that coat, just keep it to yourself, would you? No. Tell me. I’d rather know.)
It might, of course, be pointed out that blog-writing, and novel-writing, can be ways to get someone to see the writer. Inviting scrutiny, and approval. So might be a bunch of other jobs, and avocations, as well—people who work in sales, or politics, or teaching, or medicine, or… Wherever there might be appreciation for good effort, there could also be a motive for seeking attention.
There are some people whose style is to avoid the spotlight instead, maybe because they are shy. Or maybe because being seen was somehow toxic in their experience. Plenty of reasons to admire that, one of which is that it leaves more attention for the attention- seekers. But you can forget I said that.
Both Anne and I fought for the regard that made us feel less invisible, and she and I both used our verbal skills to get it. Other people might use sports, or music, or acts of service, or…? Attention was oxygen, necessary for life support. Because it stood for validation, and welcome, and belonging. And if there hadn’t been enough, desperation might have set in.
I know. I get impatient with the attention-seeking of others that I might label obnoxious. Maybe my irritation is a symptom that my own attention-seeking has been interrupted, I guess.
Oh my God. Did I just say that out loud? I’m resisting the backspace-delete key.
